Ethan remembered the brilliance, the terror, of that silver light. “Maybe they had the right idea.”
Jack Allen grinned. “Oh, come on, son. Don’t have second thoughts now. Last night you were so eager to break the ceremony. To be free.”
Ethan said nothing.
“Let me tell you a story. One cold night in 1955—almost fifty years ago to the day, come to think of it—a group of strangers checked into the Brake Inn Motel. They never checked back out. As the night grew colder, they listened in horror as the mountain moaned. They saw the Guardians circling at the edge of the light, the creatures that ensured none could leave the ceremony once it began. The guests watched in horror as the silver light burst from the mountain. They watched the end of the world.”
A look of genuine unease passed over Jack Allen: the memory still haunted him.
“And then it started all over again, not that we realized that at first. We lived through the same nightmare, night after night after night. It worked, until it didn’t. There was one glaring problem with the plan the twins’ father and the old Chief had devised. The souls ensnared by the ceremony mustwantto be there. It’s the reason the first ceremony, the one undertaken by the old tribe, lasted for hundreds of years beforeourceremony was required: the Natives hadagreedto betrapped. But in ’55, we were ignorant, unwilling, unwitting participants. And over time, the ceremony started to collapse because of it.”
Ethan said, “You realized what was happening. Just like we have.”
“Precisely.Ibegan to realize it, along with Miss Hewitt’s grandfather, but there were problems. You’ve probably figured it out by now, but a death is required for this to work. For Te’lo’hi’s power to be harnessed. In your time, that death belongs to Sarah Powers. In ours, it was The Chief, the elder Chief, who had his throat slit by the twins’ father, there in the bathtub of room five. For some reason, the ceremony has to be performed afresh every night, but me and Miss Hewitt’s grandfather could never regain our memories in time to stop The Chief’s death from taking place. We learned the purpose of the eggs, but we had no idea what to make of the mirror we found in the old house. We found ourselves trapped once more, only now with the knowledge that weweretrapped. The elder Mister Hewitt found a way to maintain his dignity. I was…” Jack Allen’s smile: those teeth grinding together like stones. “I was less fortunate. I’m sorry to say, but I went rather off my head.”
Ethan looked at the clock. 2:02.
He said, “You killed them, didn’t you?”
“Am I truly that predictable?” Jack Allen acted shocked. “Why yes, I’m afraid I did. I killed them all, one by one: the newlyweds, the backpackers, the twins, their father, the lady lovebirds. I killed them all. And wouldn’t you know it, when everyone but me was dead, I heard a noise coming from the old house. Past the locked door, down in the basement, I discovered the stone door standing open. The seal had broken. The city in the mountain—it awaited me.”
Ethan thought of the hot white stone wall in the basement of the house, the pale grooves broken by the shape of a tall rectangle. Kyla had been right: the citydidwait on the other side.
Jack Allen said, “Te’lo’hi, the god of the mountain, rests in the city’s heart. I saw it, Mister Cross. I was granted audience with a being beyond space, beyond time. I beheld its grandeur. I took a sip of its power. I tried to take more, and see what it did.”
Jack Allen held up his scarred finger, the one that ended at the second joint.
“I only had a few moments with Te’lo’hi. Because when fouro’clock arrived, to my surprise, things started over again, although now I took the shaded form you saw last night. I discovered that I’d broken one ceremony, only to be dragged into another. Because time had been passingoutsidethe ceremony, of course, and somehow Sarah Powers realized that a new one was required, or that the existing one needed repair. It’s probably why…”
Jack Allen trailed off, seemingly lost in a new thought.
Ethan shook his head. “So you’re trying to kill us all again so that you have ‘audience once more.’ Are you insane? A creature that powerful—do you want to lose your whole hand this time?”
“No. I understand it better now. What Tabitha and the others never grasped is that Te’lo’hi is ayounggod. It is… pliable. Frightened, even. It’s why it makes those horrible noises—those bellowing moans—as it begins to awaken. The god is powerful and it isafraid. Nothing is easier to control than a frightened child, believe you me.”
Ethan stared at Jack Allen.
“You see where this is going, Mister Cross. You’ve known all along. I will become a god in truth. When I am granted audience with Te’lo’hi, I know what to do this time. I will drink deep of The Lake That Travels. I willascend. I will use the power of my godhood to remake this world in my image. I will bend time to suit my whims. I will be king over death and consequence. I will have my family back, Mister Cross. I will have the life that was taken from me, and I will have my revenge on those who stole it.” Fury leaked through the cracks in Jack Allen’s smile. “Mine will be a world of precision and elegance. Mine will be a world free from doubt.”
“How in the hell is that supposed to work?”
“It will work wonderfully forme. Who cares about the other billions of fools on this rock? They’ve had millennia to ascend to something higher. This whole world is a scam. This wholelife.There’s never enough money. Never enough time. Never enough love. I will transcend all of that, Mister Cross. I am the one man on this earth brave enough to grab the sun. But maybe… maybe I can bring you with me.”
Something in the man’s tone—a faint trace of worry, or hope—gave Ethan pause. “How do I enter into this? You have to kill everyone but yourself to break the seal of the ceremony. Including me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I suspect we might be able to… bend the rules a little.”
Jack Allen reached his maimed hand into the pocket of his suit jacket. He removed a leather wallet, the same wallet Ryan Phan had removed last night when they’d searched Jack Allen’s corpse. Now, Jack Allen flipped the wallet open, fished out a photograph, slid it across the bar. “Take a look at this, why don’t you?”
Like he was in a dream, Ethan felt a sudden flood of fear with no obvious source. Something about the idea of looking at that photograph filled him with more dread than all the horrors of the desert and the mountain and the cursed motel. He wanted to look anywhere but there.
The clock. 2:02.
Ethan said, “Why bother? I’m going to stop you. I have a plan.”
“Just do me a favor, son. One tiny peek.”
Ethan tried to resist, but his curiosity got the better of him. He looked down at the photograph. He blinked, trying to look away, but it was no good. He stared.
